Star Trek Mythology paper

Theresa Brown

November 30, 2011

LIT 285 Dr. Sexson

Final Paper

The myth of Star Trek

                “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise her five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”These words start the opening sequence for every episode of the original series of Star Trek. There is a surprising amount of mythology in Star Trek. There is even one specific episode in the original series where the crew of the Enterprise finds Apollo.

                The episode in question, “Who Mourns for Adonis?” premiered on September 22, 1967. The episode begins with the Enterprise being captured by an energy field that appears much like a large green hand extending from the planet they are surveying. They then talk to the image of Apollo’s head, who greats them warmly enough at first, comparing the crew of the Enterprise to Agamemnon, Hector, and Odysseus, but not telling them who he is. Kirk’s defiance angers Apollo who threatens to crush the ship. Kirk relents to Apollo to save the ship; he’s allowed to bring down a landing party. Apollo requests only that Spock be left behind because “… he’s much like Pan, and Pan bored me.” Kirk, Scotty, Chekhov, McCoy, and Caroline (the archeology and anthropology/ancient civilizations officer) form the away party. Apollo states who he is after Kirk asked how he knew about Hector and Odysseus. Apollo informs them that the Greek gods were an intrepid band of travelers who had been to Earth 5,000 years ago (Star Trek is set in the 23^rd century).  Apollo wants the crew of the Enterprise to worship him as the ancient Greeks did. He also disables all of the technological “toys” so the landing party can’t leave. Caroline gives a basic background of Apollo after he disappears following a demonstration of his powers.  

                Kirk comes to the conclusion that it is possible for Apollo to be who he says he is. If Apollo is right about the Greek gods being travelers, and they came to earth they could easily be taken as gods by the ancient Greeks. Dr. McCoy found that Apollo was essentially human with minor variances and an extra organ in his chest. Chekhov compares Apollo to the electric eel of earth, in that he can channel energy through his own body without coming to harm. Apollo returns and takes Caroline away; he tells her that gods need love and admiration like people need food. She asked him what happened to the other gods. He said that they could not survive being simply memories, and that they stretched themselves so thin that eventually “only the wind remained”. Apollo had remained because he had faith that mankind would return to them someday.  Apollo returned to the rest of the landing party without Caroline which caused Scotty to become infuriated (he really likes Caroline). Scotty tries to attack Apollo, who repels that, and chokes Kirk when Kirk began to argue over their treatment. After Apollo attacks Kirk, he disappears again. Chekhov notices that Apollo looked either pained or tired as he disappeared, Chekhov tells Kirk this when he recovers from being choked. The landing party plans to overwork Apollo to try to free the ship.  

                Caroline is with Apollo when he returns. She intervenes when the rest of the landing party tries to implement their plan. Kirk formulates another plan and talks with Caroline alone after the incident. He tells her that the only thing that she really has is the rest of humanity, and that she must remember that and spurn Apollo in order to regain their freedom. Kirk sees being forced to stay on the planet and worship Apollo as a form of slavery. Caroline returns to Apollo and spurns him by saying that she had only been studying him the entire time.  The Enterprise has managed to make some holes in the energy field that holds the ship in place, so that they can destroy the temple which is the source of Apollo’s power for his “tricks”. After it is destroyed, Apollo states that he would have cherished the crew like a father would his children and wonders aloud if worship and obedience were too much to ask of them. Kirk states that mankind has outgrown the gods, and that what Apollo asked was something that mankind could no longer give him. Apollo then calls to the other Greek gods and says that they were right (specifically mentioning Athena right there) in saying that there is no more room for the gods. Then he too fades away like the other gods. The episode ends with Kirk musing “I wonder if it would have hurt us to gather just a few laurel leaves.”

                This is the episode specifically related to Greek mythology, but there were many episodes that covered mythological points. In the season two premiere “Amok Time” Spock must return to his home planet of Vulcan in order to take a wife or die. There is a special ceremony performed similar to a wedding. The kun-ut-kal-ifee is the name of the Vulcan ritual, which means marriage or challenge. It isn’t stated in the episode, but it is generally accepted that Vulcans are mentally bonded to their future mate when they are seven (it’s stated in the episode that they are children, but not a specific age), and that this link will draw them together at the appropriate time to kun-ut-kal-ifee. The woman then gets the option of getting out of the arraigned marriage by issuing the kal-ifee, or challenge. Then she must choose a champion to fight against the Vulcan she is bonded to. She can choose any male present. She then belongs to the winner of the kal-ifee. It is stated that the ritual of the kun-ut-kal-ifee has been handed down “from the time of the beginning.” Spock becomes so engulfed in his need to mate that he fights, and believes he kills, Kirk in the kal-ifee. This need also weakens Spock to some extent, and nearly caused him to die.

                There are several other episodes that show mythology quite well. “Bread and Circuses” shows a parallel Earth where Rome never fell and the cars are named after the gods. “Plato’s Stepchildren” shows a planet of psychics who have based their society on the writings of Plato. “Miri” shows a planet whose people tried to find immortality but ended up killing everyone who was an adult. The children did live amazingly long lives, but eventually they too would go through puberty and thus die. “Elaan of Troyus” is an episode where the leader of one planet must be married to the leader of another planet in the same solar system. She seems almost Amazonian, but she really represents Helen in the story of the Trojan War. “The Way to Eden” shows a group of people who want to return to the lifestyle of Eden, and to Eden itself. However, when they find it, the surface is so acidic that everyone who remained on it died of burns. “The Naked Time” has a strange version of Dionysus run amok on the Enterprise. This time he takes the form of a virus that has nearly the same effect as alcohol, and is spread through physical contact.

                There is an episode in Star Trek: the Next Generation that involves a people who speak solely in metaphor. The problem with this is that their metaphors are based on their own epic poem, which the crew of the Enterprise-D has no reference point for. Captain Picard does manage to learn enough of the story to determine that “Darmok and Jalad at Tonagra” is meant as cooperation between people. By cooperating with the other captain, a new word is created in their language for cooperation between different species.

                The Star Trek movies also have a lot of mythology in them. Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan has Spock make the ultimate sacrifice for the ship. We resurrect him in Star Trek III: the Search for Spock.  We learn at the beginning of The Search for Spock, that Vulcans actually can transfer their katra, or the essence of their beings (the soul), into another person. That person is to climb a mountain on Vulcan where they have their religious center, and the priestess will return the katra to the ancestors of the deceased Vulcan. If this is not done in a timely fashion the katra could drive the carrier crazy. Star Trek V: the Final Frontier has a crazy Vulcan (Sybok, Spock’s half-brother) take over the Enterprise and try to find God, and heaven. He tries to emotionally subjugate all of the crew by “taking away their pain”. This works well until he tries to do this with Spock by showing him the scene of his own birth and how their father (Sarek) considered Spock to be “so human.” Spock indicated that he had already come to terms with that assessment from Sarek. Star Trek Generations involves a dimension called “The Nexus” which gave you everything that you most desired. However, none of it was truly real and only created a loop where time would not move forward.  This creates the illusion of a paradise, but is in fact not a paradise at all.

                It has been stated that when a technology is shown that is beyond the audience’s comprehension it will appear to be magic. Star Trek takes this one step further and states that to a primitive culture advanced technology like that will appear to be the power of the gods. The wielders of these powers will therefore be held as gods in the minds of the people.  Kirk indicates that in general people have embraced a monotheistic culture when he tells Apollo that the world is fine with just the one god.  There are various implications about how live came to be in the universe. There is an episode, “Return to Tomorrow” where they find three consciousnesses held in orbs. These were once people of a species who committed global genocide. They once had had a great civilization that had spread its seed out throughout the galaxy. They wonder if humans are one of their colonies. Kirk indicates that humans appeared to have spawned without outside help. Spock however, says that the Vulcans might be one of those colonies.  

After Caroline stops Apollo from killing Kirk, he takes her away and tells her that mankind thinks it has progressed, but it has simply forgotten all the things that gave life meaning. We have lost touch with our mythology, is essentially what he is saying. We can regain our touch with mythology by recognizing how it appears in our daily lives. Kirk could easily be compared to Zeus, both by the fact that he leads, and the fact that he gets with all the women, all the time. Spock could be compared to Athena as he is the fountain of knowledge on the show, though Apollo compares him to Pan and others compare him to the devil.  Dr. McCoy would have to be Aeschylus, because he is determined to heal as many people as he can.

Works Cited

Star Trek: the Original Series. ©2011 CBS Studios. Series originally created by Gene Roddenberry

Star Trek: the Next Generation. © 2011 CBS Studios. Series originally created by Gene Roddenberry

Group Presentations Day 3

Here's what we did in class today.
Group 5: Courtney, Parker, Lucy, Sherwood, Jennifer
They also did a movie. This was based off a wedding video that Jennifer did for a friend of hers. The actual filming and editing/producing was done by a friend of Courtney's who is a film major here. He got credited at the end, but I didn't quite catch the whole name. They told the story of Persephone in a very amusing way. Courtney was Persephone, who gets abducted by Hades (Parker). We cut back to the beginning where Hades asks Zeus (Sherwood) if he can have Persephone. Hermes (Lucy) sees Hades take Persephone and runs off to tell Demeter (Jennifer), who gets very mad and causes winter. She talks things over with Zeus and demands that there be a wedding. Hades demanded that there be something in writting to bind the marriage. They were also kind enough to provide us with popcorn.

Group 6: Kevin, Andy, Juniper, Wena, Lauren, and the Viking, who I would appreciate greatly if he'd leave his name, as I'm not sure of it.
With Quentin filling in the role of a body (Kyle Miller), we went through six different funerals without ever burying the body. We started with the Irish Wake lead by Andy. We used apple juice that group six provided for our toasts. Then Lauren came in with pirate/sea burials, she was interrupted by the Viking who covered their funeral rites. He in turn got interrupted by Kevin the cowboy who told us that cowboys used cedar coffins. Kevin the cowboy was interrupted by Wena who wanted a traditional Chinese funeral. She lead us in paying our respects by bowing to the deceased, and she "burned" some incense and money. She was interrupted by the arrival of Anubis (Juniper) who demanded that we mummify Kyle Miller and have a priest present to perform the correct prayers so that he may come alive in the afterlife. It ended with what appeared to be about everyone trying to either ensure that Kyle Miller was dead, or going on with their own rites all at once. In reference to one of the Viking rituals (where they kill a volunteer from the dead guy's harem, so she can go with him) we covered seti, or the Indian ritual where the wife of the deceased jumpes into the grave with him. Wena also noted that some people burn things other than paper money for the dead, such as paper cars.

Group Presentations Day 2- the make up blog

Ooooooppppsssssss. Break got to me. We had some order reversal last Tuesday, group four went first.
Group 4: Jeremy, Stefanie, Rosemary, Megan, Darrel, Jessica
The theme of the presentation was how our view of mythology is altered as we go through life. They started with a quote stating that myth is out there to wake us up, not for us to wake it up. We first meet myth in it's most pure form through cartoons when we are children. We think nothing of talking rabbits who are taller than people. Bugs Bunny is the trickster of the cartoon world. The media is how we initiate the youth of the world into adulthood. There was a South Park reference in there somewhere around this part. In Western culture we believe that people need to learn for themselves. I have a somewhat random line in here about the succubus=lamia (Celtic tradition)= BAD women. The succubus were the female versions of the incubus. They had fun with the men, and typically killed them in the process. I have high school is a labrynth and college is merely a continuation of that labrynth. We are our heroes in high school and college. We also meet Dionysus and Aphrodite in college, though some meet both in high school. Media feuls the narcissitic tendencies of our society. We went over the story of King Midas and how everything he touched turned to gold. Group four left us with the question: Do we lose innocense as we age?

Group 3: Danielle, Ashley, Eric, Abby, Quentin, Bailey, myself
We did a video, Mainly it was pictures though we did have some interesting videos of us asking questions of random people in the bars. I was the only one whose character was not from the Greek mythology. I was Dorothy, and we did in fact take a picture of me in costume outside the Ruby Slipper, but it didn't make it into the video for editing purposes. We had several pictures (more than were shown, and a few videoes) of Artemis (Bailey) shooting people. For those who were there and are wondering who the guy in the blue was supposed to be, Poseidon. Eric (Hades) couldn't make it that night. We had some good pictures of Zeus (Ashley) seducing Io (Abby).  We did try to clear off the Yello Brick Road for my pictures, but it was also amazingly cold out that night. We had our pictures and videoes separated out by quotes from Calasso.

Group projects day 1

Group one: Jason, Jill, Zach M., Matthew, Christine
Group one did a "choose your own myth" powerpoint. This required class participation as we went around and chose what the character was doing. We came across several different myths, including the one where it seems that no matter what option you chose you ended up with Oedipus. We determined that there were about 4500 (according to Andrew) variations to the storylines dependant on the choices made. It was quite entertaining.

Group two: Sam, Tori, Justin, Madi (Zach B. was supposed to be in this group but I believe worked out something different with Dr. Sexson. I heard them discussing it before class started.)
Group two did a powerpoint where we matched celebrities with Greek gods/goddesses. We had Charlie Sheen as Dionysus, Micheal Phelps as Poseidon, Elizabeth Taylor as Aphrodite, Usain Bolt as Hermes, and Oprah Winfrey as Zeus. Then they moved on to stereotypes of people. We covered the Clintons and adultry, Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust, Andrew Jackson the war hero, Napoleon Bonaparte not the movie, and Marie Antoinette. The French never did like her, if I remember right her marriage to King Louis XVI was for political reasons. We also watched a great SNL skit where the gods were trying to figure out who was the God of Finances. It was quite hilarious. Dr. Sexson added a clip from Suddenly Last Summer which is an Elizabeth Taylor movie where there is a specific scene where she rises from the ocean, very much like Aphrodite.

Groups three and four present on Tuesday.

Nicholas Urfe, meet Theseus--- he's in the mirror

"It was partly at the thought of meeting Julie, partly at something far more mysterious, the sense that I was now deep in the strangest maze in Europe. Now I really was Theseus; somewhere in the darkness Ariadne waited; and perhaps the Minotaur." (Fowles, p. 313)

Let's break this down shall we? Pagination is from the copy the bookstore had (the white cover with the woman stripping, or getting dressed I can't tell for sure, in the O in Fowles, it's always disturbed me a little.)

"It was partly at the thought of meeting Julie," It being the pounding of his heart faster than it should. I left that sentence out because I didn't find it necessary. Usually when one's heart races at the thought of meeting someone, there is some strong emotional attachment between the people. This attachment may be one-sided, but it is there. Now we all know that Nicholas falls in love with Julie (or whatever her real name is), and it probably started here, this is one of the first signs that he admits to.

"partly at something far more mysterious, the sense that I was now deep in the strangest maze in Europe." Most of this is obvious, mazes are by nature mysterious, especially when we weren't fully aware that we're entering into one. Mazes mesmerize us not only because of their complexity, but also that we do not know what we will find within the maze. This being a metaphorical maze makes it that much harder. You can't go back and try a different branch if you find yourself at a dead end, you are completely reliant on the people who are creating the maze around you to guide you though it. I once went through a physical maze in a manner similar to the metaphorical maze. I was at a church camp, and an area was set aside and there were several balls placed within the area in random locations. The person going through the course was blindfolded. Each person had a partner who gave them directions through the course. If you stepped on a ball you would die and have to start over from the beginning. About six people were on the course at one time, and there was a counsellor walking about in the course being the voice of the Devil and would try to get us to step on the balls. When one partner successfully completed the course the roles would reverse. The world is full of voices, and we have to learn to listen to the right one. We can't just use the voice of the other guides, their partners are in different locations, and so their information doesn't apply. It has to be the voice that is aimed at you.

"Now I really was Theseus;"As we discussed when we were covering the middles, we are our own heroes. It wasn't just right then that he was Theseus, he always was, he just wasn't aware of it. He could have given the name of any hero he wanted, but it would be the same. He is the hero of his story, he just has to realize it. We all have to realize that we are the heroes. We can't wait for someone to be our hero.

"somewhere in the darkness Ariadne waited;" Ariadne of course referring to Julie of course. If we are the heroes of our stories, it makes sense that the people we meet and interact with are the other characters of our story. From reading Calasso, we know that things didn't work out between Theseus and Ariadne, which lead up to her being ditched on a beach somewhere to be found by Dionysus. As I still haven't actually finished The Magus, I don't know if we are quite that bad to Julie, but I think that we are truly that bad to Nicholas.

"and perhaps the Minotaur." All good stories require a protagonist (hero), and an antagonist (bad guy). The Minotaur is Theseus's, but who is Nicholas's antagonist? It seems to be Conchis, but I have no clear idea if that is true. Conchis seems to actually be trying to help Nicholas by opening his eyes to the reality that he carries mythology around with him. By reading the book, in part or in whole, we get the same realization, without the high price that Nicholas payed.

The end of the end

We started with some general housekeeping about our individual presentations, papers, and blogs. Dr. Sexson discouraged us from just reading our papers, or playing by ear. We should look like we are playing by ear but not actually playing by ear. Powerpoints are great, but we should check with Andrew about any technological things so we don't waste time trying to get it set up.

We then moved on to The Magus, starting with a quote from chapter 45: "All that is past possesses our present." This is essentially the definition of myth, just in different wording. We carry the entire past of the human race, we are just not aware of it. Jung called this the collective unconcious (now if I can get my mind to stop trying to make a Borg reference out of that....) stating that the way that we organize our personal experiences is exactly like everyone else, and everything else since the formation of the nervous system. This is where my notes get disjointed, because we went and covered several people's blogs. We defined the word quotidian as occuring everyday, or domestic.

When we covered blogs I wrote down things that I found really striking. Darryl had put down something about every culture has a Creator, a Preserver, and a Destroyer. I agree, sometimes they are three entities, sometimes they are one. Sometimes you get something like the Holy Trinity of Christianity: ever three and ever one. I described it once as a three-way Vulcan mind-meld, or the merging of three minds into one, but the identies of the three remain separate. 

We talked about the end of The Magus finally. I see why people were annoyed with it (still haven't gotten there...), I wrote down that it ends like The Lord of the Rings. I was mad the first time I read it through, I wanted to know what Valinor looked like, but the end is Sam returning to Bag End and picking up his child (Eleanor), and saying "I'm home." That's the end. You can't get a more precise ending without the world ending, like C.S. Lewis with The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle.  By leaving Nickolas and Allison alive (which I thought she commited suicide, so I'm lost in that regard) alive and at a crossroads, we are free to imagine whatever we choose about their fates.

Someone else's blog (I don't remember who), came up with Nickolas wanting the magic to continue, but is left in reality with all the magic gone. I wrote down that magic is like a drug, we want it to continue but reality must reassert itself. When this happens the world seems emptier/duller than when we left it. There seems to be no mystery once we have tasted magic.

We went over Krishnu telling that prince person (see last blog) that you shouldn't do a thing for the fruit (rewards) that it'll bring. I wrote down: "The work is reward enough" ~ Sherlock Holmes. Holmes often would give all the credit to Scotland Yard even if he did all the work because he didn't do it for the fame, that just brought more clients to him. He did it out of a sense of justice and duty to the people. He also did it to keep himself sane, he needed the puzzles for his mind to work properly.

Is there a Santa?

We started by reiterating that we were not going to give away the ending of The Magus. Dr. Sexson did however give us a translation of the Latin at the end: "May those who have loved, love again tomorrow. May those who have not loved, find love tomorrow." I may not be exact with that one, because we kept going. We have an assignment to blog about a specific paragraph in The Magus, a deep discussion about said paragraph. We went over the three parts of the mythological journey (separation, initiation, and return/transformation). We mentioned that one can go up (like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz), or down (like Alice in Wonderland). We mentioned also the story of Orpheus whose wife died from a snake bite at their wedding. Orpheus went into the Underworld, and played his music (he was amazing), and Hades allowed Orpheus to take his wife back. I didn't get the wife's name written down. This lead to a mentioning of Truly, Madly, Deeply, which is a movie where the husband dies, and either he doesn't want to leave her, or the wife doesn't want him to be gone. He ends up a ghost either way, and discovers other ghosts who are threatening the wife, so he must pass on in order for her to be safe. We mentioned a piece of poetry "Until the Fire and the Rose are One", or at least you can find it that way. We spoke about how at the end of The Magus we see that the guy needs to be changed, and not the other way around. I have written that I don't like Urfe because he's an idiot, and for no other reason. We mentioned "Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus", and The Painted Veil. We then watched a YouTube clip from Peter Brooks movie adaptation of Mahabharuta (please check the spelling before using that), the specific scene where Krishnu is speaking to this prince and states what he is. It states the essence of wisdom. This lead to the Oppenheimer quote when the atomic bomb was being tested: "I am become death destroyer of worlds" which comes from the Krishnu speech. When we weren't covering this we were telling stories of how we lost our belief in Santa. There were some great stories (including revenge by telling younger siblings). Catching them red-handed is always amusing as well. However I have (though I lost Santa 11 years ago) proof that there is in fact a Santa:

This is from an episode of Granada's Sherlock Holmes series. It's actually Mycroft Holmes (the older brother of Sherlock) creeping on an English Lord he suspects of stealing a precious gem. The episode is called "The Mazarin Stone" it's on YouTube if you want to check it out.

Double post day post 2- dreams

I'm just getting this one over with. We're supposed to blog about a dream we have. Well, I've had some dreams since the assignment was listed out (I have that written somewhere in this blog). I however, cannot remember any of them to save my life. Well, there is the fragment memory I have of Basil of Baker Street climbing up Sherlock Holmes's arm, but I don't remember the rest of that. Life points to whoever actually gets either reference in that sentence, double if you get both. I also have fragments of dreams that involved my family, which I deemed not worthy to share with you guys. I do get some pretty strange dreams that I remember the whole way through. I may do a reprise of this blog post if I get one of those.

Double post day, post 1- class notes

This is Stefanie's blog site. Dr. Sexson apparently had issues getting this link:stefanieherrera-1991@blogspot.com

We got our tests back at the beginning of class. The first thing I have written down is that we truly have until next week to get The Magus done. We are to start blogging about it in earnest (for those of us who haven't) at that time. We are also either to write a paper about The Magus, or some other topic approved by Dr. Sexson. We watched the end of Dead Man, and a trailer for it that was really good. It's all on YouTube for those of you who didn't make it to class. We covered a bit about the Tibetian Book of the Dead which prescribed certain rituals to prepare for the journey to the afterlife. We mentioned The Swerve by Steven Greenblatt. It covers how an ancient manuscript (The Nature of Things) is rediscovered and it changes philosophy in the Renaissance era. Going back to Dead Man we discussed the quote "Where all the spirits come from and all the spirits return." That might not be an exact quote, but it's close enough. We mentioned that we have lost touch with myth and cannot perform certain things properly, like the proper way to handle a death. We defined eschatology as the ground (or study of) death and final matters We mentioned Metem psychosis which is the passing of the soul, in certain takes into another enity, or nothing ever dies. Then we covered parabolas, and not the mathmatical ones. We mean that which comes from the side as a form of attack against what we consider to be probable. This word of course lead to parable, and a discussion of the parables of Jesus. Specifically the story of Mary and Martha, though not a parable, did come up as important. Then we came to gesung is das sein, though we found it as gesung is das ein, I think it's sein, because it translates to singing is the being, or in better English "Song is life". The word ein in German simply means a or one. This is from the sonnets to Orpheus. We learned that cicadas were originally people who died because they became blind to anything but singing. Zeus decided that death would not be the end of their song, so he turned them into cicadas.

Review for test 2

Calasso: p. 209-212, the quadternity stories. These are the ones involved in the personality profile bit we talked about last Thursday. Zeus is thought, Athena is sensation, Demeter is intuition, and Dionysus is feeling. Also on p. 209 is the story of the abduction of Persephone, or Kore. There was mentioning of the triple goddess- the mother, the daughter, and the crone.
p. 225-226, story of Athena.
p. 244, Eleusis according to Calasso.
p.336, what is Homeric theology? It gives power to the visible.
p. 359, "Why do we suffer?", and "this is the work of the gods".
p. 383-391, definition of myth and the relationship between humans and gods.
  p.387, "a life in which the gods are not invited is not worth living". Cadmus founds Thebes and gave the Greeks the alphabet.

Eliade: Taurbolium, the Bachi Dionysus, Eleusinian Mysteries. Dr. Sexson said he'll check the list of what we were supposed to have covered from Eliade. Those were what we were able to name in class.

Our questions: What does spiritus mundi mean? spirit of the world/earth.
What two animals pulled the chariot at Cadmus and Harmony's wedding? a boar and a lion. This question was debated.
What country are the Nacirema from? America
Which of the three events in the Eleusinian mysteries was the origin of drama? the thing that was done. (diomonan=drama)
What is "the study of the soul"? psychology
P. 204 of Calasso? Persephone. This question was confusing at first, and Dr. Sexson said he would work on it, but Persephone is the answer.
What is the story of the origin of the judicial system? The story of Athena and Orestes.
What is the name of the night where women can do what they want to men without fear of retribution? Totetag (Day of Death in German)
What is the animal associated with the Taurbolium? the bull
What makes something sacred? we make things sacred through rituals.
Who is the real hero according to our instructor? We are, me is acceptable as an answer too.
James Joyce's novel covers the events of the ordinary day of an ordinary man, but who was it really about? Odysseus, don't cheat and use Ulysses.
According to W.B. Yeats history cycles, and starts with a bird visiting and empregnanting a woman.
What is the Greek image of the soul? a butterfly
Metis was eaten by Zeus and Athena was born. This is going to be rephrased into a question somehow.
Which word best describes a place carved out of the world? temenos, there was more to this question, but that is the gist of it.
Who is the god of the double doors? Dionysus. This lead to a discussion about dithyrambos which means twice, and that Dionysus was born twice.
What was said to end the Pagan world and initiate the religious age? The Great Pan is Dead.
What is the fundamental difference between gods and heros? Heros die.
How do you piss of a Fury? commit matricide (kill your mother), or a blood murder.
What is the religious signifigance of Cupid and Psyche? The psychological development of the female
Which ritual came up several times in the ritual presentations? the Karamundi rain making ceremony
What is the name of the girl who had a sandal thrown at her? Charila, this can be found on p. 163 of Calasso, and will be rephrased.
There was a question posed that was similar in clarity to the Persephone question. The answer is Antigone, and will have something to do with a play and fighting against something in society.
What term gave us the word senator? senex
What does archetype mean? Primordial images often arising from mythology
There may be a question refering to maypoles and other fertility rituals.
There may also be a question referring to the 22 point hero formula, most likely involving Oedipus.
In this class, what Christian ritual covered death and rebirth? baptism.
Why was Demeter putting the child in the fire? To make him immortal.
Who is the archetype of a "daddy's girl"? Athena